Donald Westlake - Smoke

"But what did he do? " Peg wanted to know. "When you talked to him, and he couldn't see you?"

"Well, first he jumped—"

"Naturally."

"But then he just got sad and shook his head and said, "It's my old trouble comin back. And I was doin so good. And now it's my old trouble comin back.'"

"Oh," Peg said, brought down. "I feel sorry for the guy."

"Me, too," Freddie said. "So I told him, "You shoulda took your medicine, like they told you.' And he said, "Oh, I know, I know.' And it was gonna be my train then, so I said, "Take your medicine and I'll never bother you again. Is it a deal?' And he said, "Oh, I will, I will.' And I gave him a little pat on the back, and his eyes got all wide, and when I went away he was thinking it over, and I think maybe I did some good there today, Peg."

"That's nice," Peg said. "That was good of you, Freddie."

"So then I got on the train," Freddie said, "and it was only like half full, so I had no trouble about a seat by myself, and here I am, except I'm hungry. All I had was breakfast at the movie."

"Which brings up an issue," Peg said. "You didn't tell me food doesn't disappear right away."

"Uh-oh. Yesterday, huh?"

"Yes."

"I thought maybe you wouldn't want to know."

"You were right. But now I do. How long does it take, anyway, to uh, you know, disappear?"

"Couple hours," Bart said, looking hangdog. "I'll make sure, Peg, I don't remind you again. You know, if those cops hadn't showed up—"

"I know, Freddie," she told him. "You're doing your best, I know you are."

"Thanks, Peg."

"And we'll be home pretty soon." They were driving through bright green June scenery, rounded hills, tiny white villages, red barns, wildflowers on the roadsides, horses in fields, cows in fields, even sheep in one field, afternoon sun smiling down on the countryside, corn and tomatoes growing in tight rows, the gray van with Peg Briscoe and Bart Simpson running deeper and deeper into the landscape. "From here on," Peg said, "we've got it made."

26

Peter and David dressed for the meeting. Fumbling with his necktie, getting it wrong again, David said, "I don't know what's wrong with this tie."

"You're nervous, David," Peter explained. His tie was perfect, he was even now shrugging into his blazer, shooting his cuffs. "Calm down, why don't you?"

"Of course I'm nervous. Peter, for God's sake, you're nervous, too, you're just covering it, keeping it inside, you know that's—"

"Tie your tie, David," Peter said, not unkindly. "We'll be all right."

That trace of sympathy in Peter's voice was enough; David calmed down at least enough to tie his tie so the end neither dangled at his crotch nor covered a mere two buttons of his shirt. Slipping into his rough jacket with the brown suede elbow patches — his defensive garb was professorial, while Peter's was aristocratic — David said, "All right. I'm ready. For whatever comes."

What came first, by prearrangement, was Bradley Cummingford, a large sandy-haired man with a big round open face and eyebrows of such a pale pinky-orange as to almost disappear. He wore a blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, muted blue tie, and black tassel loafers, and he carried an attachй case of extremely expensive leather, and he greeted them with a firm handshake and a clear eye and no nonsense. This was a Bradley Cummingford seen in a whole new light. Prior to this, they had only known Bradley in playful mode, when he was a very different person, in a very different place.

Many of David and Peter's friends summered up in the central Hudson Valley, around the river town of Hudson and eastward from there toward — but not into — New England. This influx into the rural dairy world of upstate by all these sophisticated New Yorkers of a certain type had done wonders for the region, particularly in culinary ways: an unusual range of restaurants; arugula and goat cheese in the supermarkets, for God's sake; excellent variety in the local wine shops. David and Peter, wedded to their research and happy as Darby and Joan — Darby and Darby, anyway — in their city townhouse, had never bought or rented a summer place in the country, but they'd frequently accepted weekend invitations to this or that hideaway in the woods, where the goings-on tended to be . . . unbuttoned.

Until now, that was the only way they'd ever known Bradley Cummingford, merely as a fellow guest at summer outings, but they'd always been aware that he somehow or other had a serious side as well, in which he wore grown-up male clothing and was treated with respect by lawyers and judges and businessmen. When they found themselves at the mercy — to put too strong a word on it — of the tobacco lawyer, Mordon Leethe, and when it became evident there was no one around who was both knowledgeable in the arcane and frightening world of the law and reliably on their side, one of them — it doesn't matter which one, it really doesn't — remembered Bradley, and they made the phone call, and met with him in his offices in a downtown skyscraper — high floor, tall windows, lovely view of La Liberty lifting her skirts above that awful sludge in the harbor — and once they got him to believe that yes, they had strong reason to believe they had created an invisible man, on whom a large tobacco company had some sort of nefarious designs, he looked somber, almost severe, and said, "Well, you two have been silly, haven't you?"

Peter, not used to this more responsible Bradley, said. "Is that a legal term, Bradley?"

"You don't want to know the legal term, Peter," Bradley said, and gazed levelly at him until Peter coughed and looked away and muttered, "I'm sorry. I'll be good."

"Better late than never," Bradley said. "Now tell me the rest."

So they told him everything, and he made many tiny notes on a long yellow legal pad, and said he'd see what he could do. Then, for a week, he couldn't do a thing; every time they called, Bradley had the same news: "He's ducking me. But he can't do it forever." Until, late yesterday, when they called him — he never called them, you notice — he said, "Tomorrow morning, you will threaten to go public."

"Oh, please, " they cried. (They were on the speakerphone in their office at the time.) "Bradley, are you out of your mind? A premature disclosure of this experiment would make us laughingstocks, Bradley, it would ruin us in the field forever, we'd be lucky to get published in Omni! "

"I didn't say you were going public," he corrected them, infuriatingly calm.

"Well, it certainly sounded like it."

"I said you will, tomorrow morning, threaten to go public, to protect yourselves from unknown consequences of Mr. Leethe and his friends' activities. You will make this threat against my counsel and advice, I might add."

In their office, Peter and David smiled in relief at one another. They hadn't been wrong about Bradley, after all. Peter said, "Bradley, you are a slyboots."

"Well, we'll see," Bradley said, and now they had seen, and Bradley was a slyboots. Mordon Leethe had been flushed from his lair, was on his way here, would meet with them and with Bradley.

But first Bradley by himself. In he came with his expensive attachй case, briskly shook hands, and surveyed their parlor with a critical eye. "Haven't you anything less comfortable?"

David stared. " Less comfortable?"

Peter said, "This is where we talked with him last time."

"It's obviously too small for four," Bradley said, gazing around a room that could have — and often had — accommodated eight with no problem. "What else do you have?"

"Well," David said, dubiously, "there's the conference room downstairs."